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Comment by sylens | Hacker News Reader

Would be the perfect laptop if it could hook up to 2 external monitors instead of just one. For that reason, I have to go for the M2 Pro.

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If the M2 Air supported two displays, I’d have no reason whatsoever to buy the expensive MacBook Pro. The M1/M2 Air is already so ridiculously overpowered for my needs. Which is probably why the Air doesn’t support two displays. Sigh.

Genuinely curious: can I hook up the Air with a single ultra-wide monitor that's exactly as large as two regular monitors side by side, or is the screen resolution limited, too? I'm thinking of something like [1], though it will probably make more sense to get a MacBook Pro instead at that kind of price.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/LG-49WL95C-W-49-Inch-Curved-Ultrawide...

The MacBook Air supports up to 6K resolution displays, your linked display has 60% fewer pixels than that, it will work fine

It should be fine. I'm typing this on an M1 MBP hooked to a Samsung CRG9.

> Which is probably why the Air doesn’t support two displays

I recall reading at least with the M1 that it's actually a physical hardware limitation with the architecture inherited from the fact that the base M1 is pretty close to the A15 which never needed to pump out to more displays.

The irony being that they then made the M1 Pro and M1 Max/Ultra that support more displays. In fact, I would be okay with it running dual displays like the mac mini where the internal display is disabled when two externals are connected. The M2, made after the M1 Pro still does not support multiple displays. It's an odd omission.

The M1 Pro is the same architecture.

If you're not fussed about a bit of extra CPU usage and you are not playing games on it, you can use a DisplayLink-capable hub to run two 4k screens @ 60Hz. E.g. https://www.sonnettech.com/product/m1-mac-dual-displayport-a...

You just convinced me not to buy it (M1 user that are annoyed by the same issue).

I have a hub that lets me use two external monitors. The big downside is that one of them is limited to 30Hz and moving my mouse around it feels wrong compared to the 60Hz main display.

I just can't understand why it isn't supported. I thought the M1 was an oversight that they would correct with the M2.

it’s a pro feature

-apple

It's such an odd thing to not address. Even the old Intel MacBook Air could drive two.

The M1 Pro was supposed to support dual monitors, so I wouldn't hold my breath.

Not meant as a sarcastic question but why not get a mac mini/studio instead?

Not OP, but I work from home and the office, and also take my machine into meetings occasionally. The portability is nice.

I assume the same for just about anyone in my position.

(I'd have two Studios and an Air if it were a utopia scenario, but... that's expensive!)

Presumably because that's not a laptop.

It is a fair question. I've been doing this, with a maxed out 2018 mac mini through the blackmagic eGPU to the XDR Pro display as my main workstation.

I have the 2018 macbook air as my portable. It's abysmal, but I can use it to work on the couch if I have to.

I am going to try the M2 air to replace both the laptop, the mini and the eGPU. Quite a lot of hardware traded out for one single solution.

I don't like keeping multiple machines up to date and spending time doing the same updates or having to go back to one to push some branch I forgot about.

That said, I'm counting on the MBA M2 to deliver graphics to the XDR on par with the blackmagic and if it can't I may return it, get a cheaper M1 MBA and either wait out the M2 mini or pick up a studio.

I do have a second 4k monitor that I'd prefer to be able to drive--I can with the Intel box and eGPU. But I don't really use it and with the XDR it isn't really necessary.

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